Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You know, I never really paid attention to sports, which, coming from the mecca of football in Texas, is kind of odd. I played sports, but I was nerdy. Having a single mother, the pressure was on me to get good grades and a scholarship and go to college.
I started dancing when I was about 15 or 16 in my high school drama club, and then I liked it so much that they offered dual enrollment classes. So my senior year, I ended up taking college dance courses while I was in high school because I had good grades.
I knew I wanted to be an actress, but I hadn't ever really told anyone. I'd always got quite good grades, so people assumed I would go and do a 'normal' job. My dad took me to my first audition for drama school and picked me up without anyone knowing, really.
I think that anybody that stays in school, gets good grades, pays the price, I think we are wealthy enough in the public and the private sector in America to make sure that every child in America that wants to continue their education, they should be able to do that.
When I was at uni, I got good grades and went on to do honours, but I kept thinking, 'I shouldn't be here.' Something just didn't feel right. When I finished, I decided that every decision I make from this day forward will be purely based on intuition, and I'm not going to fight that.
I was very academically inclined. But my inner life was in such turmoil. I'd go home and my home life was so miserable that it just felt like I was doing everything that I was supposed to do. I did all my chores, made really good grades, and I was excelling at school, but I wasn't happy.
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn't been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A's without taking a book home. I didn't go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
Of course I wanted an agent from the time I was like 5, but my mother was like, 'No, you're going to be normal, you're going to go to school, you're going to get good grades, you're going to play soccer, and if you do well, if you keep your grades up, you can do one community-theater show a year.'
Most of the time I liked school and got good grades. In junior high, though, I hit a stumbling block with math - I used to come home and cry because of how frustrated I was! But after a few good teachers and a lot of perseverance, I ended up loving math and even choosing it as a major when I got to college.
Plays have a celebratory nature that no other form has. Theater always meant celebration, a birthday, a reward for good grades. I felt at home in a theater. I loved being part of an audience. All the rules - the audience has to see the play on a certain date at a certain time in a certain place in a certain seat.
When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.
Growing up as a kid, in elementary and middle school, I was always getting in trouble. Always getting suspended. I got suspended for 90 days for fighting beginning my freshman year, so I missed Homecoming, and that's when I turned the page. I went on honor roll and had good grades after that. It was the changing point.
It's kind of shocking to me, actually, that I've almost been stereotyped, in a way - physically - because, I didn't get good grades in school; I got in a lot of fights. I wear glasses because I don't want something tugging my eyeball, but I wouldn't consider myself a 'nerd.' I don't know what really makes someone a nerd.
I wasn't in school often enough to really belong to a 'clique,' but my friends all studied hard and got pretty good grades. They were good people with self-respect. I still like to be friends with people I admire something about; I really believe that we become like the people we're surrounded by, so I choose my friends carefully!
My mom was always keen I stayed in school and got good grades, and she was always keen for me to do medicine. I used to go to drama classes when I was younger, and she would always take me. But when I got to an age when I decided it was what I wanted to do, when she accepted it, she had actually been the most supportive person ever.
I was interested in wildlife conservation, and I chose Georgia because they supposedly had a good forestry school. I figured it might be easier to get good grades there, too, because a lot of Southern kids would come up to school in New Jersey, and they'd always be a little behind, so I figured maybe I wouldn't have to work so hard.